


His Naivety

by AcidArrow



Series: Clintasha Week 2016 [2]
Category: Avengers (Comics), Black Widow (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Porn, Clint Barton Feels, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Hurt Clint Barton, Marvel 616/MCU Crossover, Natasha Needs a Hug, Natasha Romanov Has Issues, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha-centric, On the Run, Past Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Sub Clint Barton, pre-SHIELD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-02 00:40:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6543424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcidArrow/pseuds/AcidArrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sad, lonely, desperate nineteen-year-old walks into a bar in the rural Midwest, and buys a pretty blonde a drink. Four months later, they're pulling off the perfect acts of terrorism together... only he's convinced they're the <i>good guys</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Naivety

**Author's Note:**

> A lovely headcanon I have, because I adore feelsy-Natasha. For Day #2 of Clintasha Week 2016: Headcanons.  
> Thanks to ~cinnaatheart for helping me brainstorm some of this over chat!

“Holy  _ shit _ \--!” spat Clint, as the spry, stunning blonde unwrapped both of her strong legs from around his midsection and finally slid herself up, up, and off of his now limp cock. The delicious, tight warmth of her pussy was gone in a heartbeat and the gorgeous woman rolled off of him, onto the mattress at his side. 

Natalia was grinning, of course -- smirking to herself in amusement and delight. He didn’t even care. The sex was too good for any form of masculine pride to get in its way, not that Clint had ever really had a problem with feeling emasculated before. The afterglow of the sex descended upon him like a shimmering haze as he lay panting on his back, gulping in greedy amounts of oxygen now that he could finally breathe again without her hand around his throat and her tight heat around his oversensitive, naked cock.

“Goddamn…” he managed to choke out, and the Russian spy just chuckled at him, her head against one broad shoulder. The nineteen-year-old American was exactly her type: tall, lean, attractive, highly-skilled… and completely naive.

“Was it good for you, маленькая птица?” she asked him, in the same honey-drenched, sugar-coated purr that she had first used to ensnare this poor sucker in a dive bar in a Midwestern state somewhere north of here. Her long fingers walked their way up one of his pecs, which was rising and falling shakily in the aftermath of their joint orgasm. 

_ He _ thought they were syncing up perfectly, like lovers. Sadly,  _ she _ could pretty much come on command at this point.

But his naivety was what made him so _ delectable _ to her.

“Yeah… yeah,  _ fuck _ …” 

Natalia laughed openly, though unbeknownst to him, it wasn’t an entirely genuine sound. He was amusing, yes, and she was amused, and enjoyed his company… but at the end of the day, this was an act. A means to an end. The kid was insanely talented with a bow and arrow, and not quite as talented with his wits. This was a  _ game _ .

The longer she was with him… the more and more she had to keep reminding herself of that small fact.

“Jesus tap-dancin’  _ Christ _ , I have  _ no _ idea how ya always  _ do _ that to me…” 

Natalia scoffed, readjusting herself so that she could place her head on his chest, honey-blonde hair that he just couldn’t seem to get enough of spilling out and flowing all over his pale, freckled skin. “You’re easy, Clint… I know what turns you on. Strong, dominant, older women.”

He grinned sheepishly down at her. “Wow, am I that easy to peg?”

“You could be,” she said, her eyes and teeth sparkling dangerously as her lips curled into a predatory smile. “I do have my toys.”

“Oh, shit!” Clint laughed and wriggled an arm around her, holding the Russian woman close to his chest. How the hell he had gotten so lucky, he would never know. She was everything he had ever wanted, and what was more, they were changing the world together. Giving back to humanity. Setting the wrongs  _ right _ . 

“You know,” Natalia was saying, her index fingernail tracing lines between the freckles and on his arm with the same interest and curiosity as a child with a puzzle book, “I have to admit, I’ve never worked with someone in the field so… obedient.”

“Hey, I’m suddenly startin’ ta think _ I’m _ not the one with the fetish here,” Clint shot back, and she turned her head so that she could peer up at him through her long, dark lashes. Well-trained, emerald-green, cat-like eyes conveyed beautifully and tragically how honest and sincere she was being at that moment in time.

A curtain call for the performance of her  _ year. _

“I’m not talking about the sex, милая моя,” she said soberly, planting a soft kiss on his jawline. “I’m talking about the job… well,  _ jobs _ . The vigilante work you’ve been helping me out with over the past few months. Clint… a lot of people are able to sleep much more soundly in the wake of the work we’ve done.”

He got that grin on his face, the goofy one, the one that immediately told her he was abused as a child and had no idea how to take a compliment or be told that he was worth anything. It was a part of his personality she had been using to control him since she first laid eyes on him in that bar.

He was begging for affection,  _ desperate _ to be loved, and Natalia was nothing if not pragmatic. And if this was what she had to do to keep her little bird boy pliant, then this was what she would do.

“Don’t blush like that, as cute as it is, маленькая птица,” she cooed, watching him squirm under her special little nickname for him, coupled with her warm, loving gaze. “I’m being serious. The way you respect me enough on the field to just… listen. Obey. The way you _ trust _ me… птица, the way you trust me with your _ life _ , enough so that you’ll follow an order without even sparing a moment to think about it…?” 

The Red Room operative offered him her sweetest, most adoring smile, curling her body against him in a way that would ignite the masculine urge in him to protect and cradle his small female. 

“маленькая птица, you and I  _ belong _ together. You and I are  _ perfect _ . And I know that, together? You and I are going to do  _ wonders _ for this world.”

Clint’s slate-grey eyes flickered about awkwardly, anxiously, even as Natalia tried to pin them down with her own. He was acting… bizarrely, even for him, and for a moment she was concerned that perhaps she had pushed him a little _ too _ far. Her lips parted to say something, but he was already rolling out from underneath her, planting one bare foot and one socked foot on the floor so that he could stand up.

“Птица?” Natalia pushed herself up, deliberately arching her waistline in a way that would be attractive to the male gaze in an early attempt at damage control. “Is everything all right…?”

“Yeah… yeah, everything’s… everything’s great.” He had padded across the room to where his quiver lay beneath the motel room table and knelt beside it, deliberately shielding whatever he was doing from her with his body. 

“Better than great, actually. Like, way,  _ way  _ better than great.” The young archer glanced at her over his shoulder, and she could tell in the way he hesitated that he was overthinking what he was about to do, and wondering if he should still do it. Discretely, her hand slid beneath the pillow on her side of the bed, fingers delicately folding around the Glock she knew was nestled there.

“Should… should I be concerned at all…?” she asked, light humour to her voice, and he quickly shook his head.

“No! No, not at all, I… could, like… did you wanna sit up, maybe…?” His greyish eyes looked at her imploringly, and she decided he was enough of a simpleton that she could play along for now, and easily take him out if something…  _ unexpected _ occurred, and put a wrench in her plans. She smiled at him again and swung both long legs around, sitting herself naked on the edge of the bed and brushing her hair over one shoulder where it curled against one proud, bare breast. 

Clint cleared his throat, almost as naked as she was sans that one goddamn purple  _ sock _ , and lifted himself to his knees. She regarded him skeptically, suspiciously, watching every muscle and tendon in his body flex beneath the bruised skin in order to predict his movements as he turned toward her and sank to one knee.

But there was absolutely  _ zero _ chance that she would have been able to predict what he would do next.

“N… Natalia?” He was trembling like a bird, his eyes wide and fearful as his voice wavered about nervously. His right hand arose, and pinched between his thumb and forefinger was a stunning, sparkling, white-gold, diamond ring. 

“Ti -- VIE-desh -- za -- me-NYA?” The words burst out of him in what was quite possibly the  _ worst _ attempt at a Russian accent she had  _ ever _ heard, but she was still more than capable of understanding and translating the words he was doing his best to convey.

Ты выйдешь за меня.  _ Will you marry me. _

“Uh…”

For the first time in her life, or at least since her graduation ceremony, Natalia was speechless. Completely and utterly, irrevocably speechless. Her mouth hung open, green eyes wide, and for a few moments she just  _ stared _ at him, not  _ entirely _ sure that this wasn’t just some sort of joke or prank that someone with his sense of humour would find amusing.

But, no. There was no lie in his eyes, no humour in the way his lower lip trembled and his hand shook visibly as he held the ring out for her. And what was worse, he was waiting for an answer… and she  _ had  _ to answer him.

“Clint… птица…” Her hand fell to his, closing around it, and she squeezed his fingers lightly. “I…”

“It… it’s too soon, isn’t it?” His face fell and his arm lowered, along with his eyes. “Shit…  _ shit _ , I’m sorry, Nat… I dunno what… look, I’m just --”

“It’s not you, птица,” she replied quickly, cutting him off mid-sentence before he could say anymore, and her hand tightened around his before it could sink down too far. She needed to save this before it went too far. 

Damage control. 

“It’s me. Okay? I… I have… some commitment issues. A past boyfriend.” She flaunted her best pained expression, the  _ I-have-tragedy-in-my-past _ look in her eyes, and wrapped her arms a little around her naked body. “I shouldn’t have reacted this way, I… I do love you, маленькая птица. More than anything else in this world.”

Clint smiled sheepishly, his entire face a bold, dark red by this point. “No, no, it’s okay, you don’t… you don’t gotta explain. I’m sorry, I… I shouldn’a done this.”

“No.” She lifted his hand to her mouth, planting her lips on each of his knuckles in turn in gentle, chaste, loving kisses. “You should. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did.”

“Okay, so…” 

He grinned up at her with that boyish charm, and she felt something strange inside of her… something that she didn’t quite understand. 

“Then I’ve got your permission to pocket this an’ try again sometime?”

Again, a chord was struck within her, but this time she was ready. She was braced, prepared. She smiled back at him, and cupped his rough face in her hand, stroking his cheek with her thumb.

“Yes, my lovely little bird. You have my permission to ask me again sometime.” 

“Awesome. That’s great.” Clint was on his feet in a heartbeat, stalking in that lanky way he did back over to his quiver to hide the ring wherever he had been keeping it. Picking absent-mindedly at one cuticle, Natalia watched him, a gentle note in her voice when she next spoke.

“маленькая птица?”

“Yeah?”

“That ring…” Natalia hid the way she swallowed, for once grateful that his back was turned on her, and that he wouldn’t notice her body language. “It’s the one we stole from the Richards manor?”

“Hey -- not stole,  _ liberated _ !” Clint corrected her, tossing a smirk over his shoulder. “He’s a bad guy, right? We’re good guys? So technically, that kinda makes us, like… Robin Hoods, or something.”

Natalia didn’t react to his metaphor, not even to crack an archery joke. Because she was far too lost within herself, twisting in an agony, a pain, a  _ guilt _ she had never felt before… or at least, couldn’t  _ remember  _ feeling. A sense of shame and distress that had never plagued her on the job before. Remorse she could usually bury beneath layer upon layer of  _ ice _ .

_ He wants me to marry him, _ she thought, watching the daft, clueless bastard mill and potter about at the sink counter of the dank little motel room, no doubt making his usual morning coffee.  _ He thinks we are changing the world for the betterment of his country… of mankind. He thinks we’re heroes. _

Pity, anguish, fear, grief,  _ regret _ … they were all things she was a stranger to, emotions that were usually far too afraid of her to rear their ugly heads. And yet somehow, someway, this sweet, innocent, pathetic,  _ imbecile _ of a man -- with his goddamn charm and his  _ naivety _ \-- had managed to make her feel all of them simultaneously in the space of about fifteen seconds.  
  
And Natalia Romanova would never be the same again.

**Author's Note:**

> Roll with me on Tumblr!  
> [~acidarrowguy](http://acidarrowguy.com)


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